Facebook Donates Recovered Money to UAB Cybercrime Group

UAB Center for Information Assurance and Joint Forensics Research receives a facelift thanks to Facebook.

The UAB Center for Information Assurance and Joint Forensics Research received a $250,000 donation from Facebook for the center’s role in tracking international criminals behind social-media botnet Koobface and other spammers. The donation, which comes from money Facebook recovered from spammers located around the world, will be used to expand the new CIA|JFR headquarters. “As a result of numerous collaborations over the years, Facebook recognizes the center as both a partner in fighting Internet abuse and a critical player in developing future experts who will become dedicated cyber-security professionals,” says Joe Sullivan, chief security officer at Facebook. “The center has earned this gift for their successes in fighting cyber-crime and because of the need for formal cyber-security education to better secure everyone’s data across the world.”

The center, a multidisciplinary research hub, that works with law enforcement, business, government agencies and academia, gathers more than 1 million spam emails daily in its UAB Spam Data Mine.

“Cyber-attacks are ever-evolving and multiplying and the well-being of society depends on a highly trained workforce, so we thank Facebook for helping bolster the center as we continue to educate the next generation of cyber-crime solvers,” says Anthony Skjellum, Ph.D., chair of the UAB Department of Computer and Information Sciences and co-founder of the CIA|JFR. “The Facebook Suite will be the CIA|JFR nerve center. It will be the place where cyber-visionaries from around the world will gather to share ideas, discoveries and solutions.”

On Jan. 17, 2012, Facebook Security posted a message about their fight to stop Koobface, noting that it took more than three years “of working closely with industry leaders, the security community, and law enforcement” to end the threat from the virus and the criminals behind it.

The Facebook team ended the piece by personally thanking only four people, two of whom were at UAB: Brian Tanner, then a student and today the first UAB student to earn a master’s degree in Computer Forensics and Security Management, and Gary Warner, director of Research in Computer Forensics. (Read the entire Facebook post here.)

Richard Marchase, Ph.D., UAB vice president of Research and Economic Development, backed the creation of the CIA|JFR and says it was an easy decision that pays off every day.

“Cyber-attacks are generally perpetrated by sophisticated networks, so we all realized that any successful effort to combat them would likewise require a specialized network that could compete with anything operating in the underworld,” says Marchase. “The center has already assembled an internationally respected team, and now Facebook’s generous contribution will help provide us with a state-of-the-art headquarters, positioning UAB at the vanguard of the global fight against cyber-crime.”

The FBI recently thanked UAB for helping solve an attack that infected more than 400 million computers in 100-plus countries. (Read more).The UAB Center for Information Assurance and Joint Forensics Research received a $250,000 donation from Facebook for the center’s role in tracking international criminals behind social-media botnet Koobface and other spammers. The donation, which comes from money Facebook recovered from spammers located around the world, will be used to expand the new CIA|JFR headquarters. “As a result of numerous collaborations over the years, Facebook recognizes the center as both a partner in fighting Internet abuse and a critical player in developing future experts who will become dedicated cyber-security professionals,” says Joe Sullivan, chief security officer at Facebook. “The center has earned this gift for their successes in fighting cyber-crime and because of the need for formal cyber-security education to better secure everyone’s data across the world.”

The center, a multidisciplinary research hub, that works with law enforcement, business, government agencies and academia, gathers more than 1 million spam emails daily in its UAB Spam Data Mine.

“Cyber-attacks are ever-evolving and multiplying and the well-being of society depends on a highly trained workforce, so we thank Facebook for helping bolster the center as we continue to educate the next generation of cyber-crime solvers,” says Anthony Skjellum, Ph.D., chair of the UAB Department of Computer and Information Sciences and co-founder of the CIA|JFR. “The Facebook Suite will be the CIA|JFR nerve center. It will be the place where cyber-visionaries from around the world will gather to share ideas, discoveries and solutions.”

On Jan. 17, 2012, Facebook Security posted a message about their fight to stop Koobface, noting that it took more than three years “of working closely with industry leaders, the security community, and law enforcement” to end the threat from the virus and the criminals behind it.

The Facebook team ended the piece by personally thanking only four people, two of whom were at UAB: Brian Tanner, then a student and today the first UAB student to earn a master’s degree in Computer Forensics and Security Management, and Gary Warner, director of Research in Computer Forensics. (Read the entire Facebook post here.)

Richard Marchase, Ph.D., UAB vice president of Research and Economic Development, backed the creation of the CIA|JFR and says it was an easy decision that pays off every day.

“Cyber-attacks are generally perpetrated by sophisticated networks, so we all realized that any successful effort to combat them would likewise require a specialized network that could compete with anything operating in the underworld,” says Marchase. “The center has already assembled an internationally respected team, and now Facebook’s generous contribution will help provide us with a state-of-the-art headquarters, positioning UAB at the vanguard of the global fight against cyber-crime.”

The FBI recently thanked UAB for helping solve an attack that infected more than 400 million computers in 100-plus countries. (Read more).The UAB Center for Information Assurance and Joint Forensics Research received a $250,000 donation from Facebook for the center’s role in tracking international criminals behind social-media botnet Koobface and other spammers. The donation, which comes from money Facebook recovered from spammers located around the world, will be used to expand the new CIA|JFR headquarters. “As a result of numerous collaborations over the years, Facebook recognizes the center as both a partner in fighting Internet abuse and a critical player in developing future experts who will become dedicated cyber-security professionals,” says Joe Sullivan, chief security officer at Facebook. “The center has earned this gift for their successes in fighting cyber-crime and because of the need for formal cyber-security education to better secure everyone’s data across the world.”

The center, a multidisciplinary research hub, that works with law enforcement, business, government agencies and academia, gathers more than 1 million spam emails daily in its UAB Spam Data Mine.

“Cyber-attacks are ever-evolving and multiplying and the well-being of society depends on a highly trained workforce, so we thank Facebook for helping bolster the center as we continue to educate the next generation of cyber-crime solvers,” says Anthony Skjellum, Ph.D., chair of the UAB Department of Computer and Information Sciences and co-founder of the CIA|JFR. “The Facebook Suite will be the CIA|JFR nerve center. It will be the place where cyber-visionaries from around the world will gather to share ideas, discoveries and solutions.”

On Jan. 17, 2012, Facebook Security posted a message about their fight to stop Koobface, noting that it took more than three years “of working closely with industry leaders, the security community, and law enforcement” to end the threat from the virus and the criminals behind it.

The Facebook team ended the piece by personally thanking only four people, two of whom were at UAB: Brian Tanner, then a student and today the first UAB student to earn a master’s degree in Computer Forensics and Security Management, and Gary Warner, director of Research in Computer Forensics. (Read the entire Facebook post here.)

Richard Marchase, Ph.D., UAB vice president of Research and Economic Development, backed the creation of the CIA|JFR and says it was an easy decision that pays off every day.

“Cyber-attacks are generally perpetrated by sophisticated networks, so we all realized that any successful effort to combat them would likewise require a specialized network that could compete with anything operating in the underworld,” says Marchase. “The center has already assembled an internationally respected team, and now Facebook’s generous contribution will help provide us with a state-of-the-art headquarters, positioning UAB at the vanguard of the global fight against cyber-crime.”

The FBI recently thanked UAB for helping solve an attack that infected more than 400 million computers in 100-plus countries. (Read more).